Book Notes: Agony Column
OK, time to do some initial clean up on my “To Blog” folder.
The first thing on the menu is a set of pointers to Agony Column content, to thin out the “Books” subfolder. I’ve mentioned before that Rick Kleffel might be the reviewer who most constantly lines up with my eclecticism, and looking at my “To Blog” folder I see a lot of links to his stuff–although there’s lots more content there that I could just as easily be pointing to. Go explore it.
- An Interview With Andrew Vachss
An MP3 chat with the hardest man in fiction. His dog can eat you in one bite, assuming Vachss doesn’t just kill you with an offhand glare. I have mentioned this interview and my thoughts on Vachss before. - Review of Liz Williams’ Snake Agent
Liz was really due for a hardcover, and they made this one so beautiful. I’ve already ordered the follow on book. - Review of Crowley’s Byron Novel
I quite enjoyed this book, although it’s not Little, Big. (And boy, am I excited about the snazzy edition of that!) - Review Of Irvine’s The Narrows
I freely admit that I first bought Alex Irvine’s stuff because of a conversation we had in a Framingham hotel about blowing things up. I’m glad I liked his thoughts on explosions, because I’ve really enjoyed his books. The “high concept” pitch for Irvine is “East Coast Tim Powers”, and you know I think of Powers as being a writer extraordinaire. - An Interview With Jeff Ford
I am a drooling fan boy for Jeffrey Ford (indeed, when I was introduced to him it was with “Hey Jeff, come and meet one of your drooling fanboys!”). His novels have been uniformly brilliant (despite what Trish may say!) and his stories are always at least good, and occasionally staggering. It kills me that the person I had pictured after reading his books is pretty much the opposite of who Ford is in superficial details like appearance and accent, etc. If you’re expecting him to sound like an effete aristocratic Physiognomist, you’re in for a surprise. - Review of Ford’s Cosmology Of The Wider World
Not much to add to the above, except “boy, this was a good book”. - Review Of Harrison’s Viriconium
The Dying Earth meets Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, with some extra drugs and some New Wave sensibilities. What’s not to like? - Review of Christopher Moore’s new book
Fantasy comedy is hard to do right. Moore does it right. We’ve talked about this before. - Rick goes off about typesetting
I am just including this because it amuses me.
Kira
b3n
Sharon